Grounding techniques for BPD?

[trigger police]

(General note: my partner prefers gender neutral pronouns, so I will refer to them as such.)
Okay, so I have BPD and part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD I meet is "Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms." I do dissociate quite a bit, but my biggest problem is the "paranoid thoughts."

One of my most common paranoid thoughts is "My partner is cheating on me." I know logically they wouldn't cheat on me, but when I'm extremely stressed out (or sometimes even just a little), reassurance to myself of "they wouldn't do that" just doesn't help.

I don't know what to do. I lash out at them so much for this and I know it hurts them and I know it's incredibly stressful for them. I can't help it. I try to stop it from happening, but it just consumes me and the thoughts are like a plague. I don't know how to deal with them right now other than accusing my partner of cheating on me every single time I fabricate some discrepancy. (Like one night, they told me they were going to bed, but then said they had to check on something online before they did and I accused them of cheating on me.)

Do any of you ever get paranoid thoughts? What do you do to ground yourself? What do you do to get out of it? What could I do? I currently cannot afford therapy and I do not have access to the free therapy my college offers (I go back in late January), so seeing a professional isn't much of an option.

[Cheeba Passion]

Well, I'm not sure I have BPD but I've certainly had my suspicions, though I've never mentioned it to a health professional reluctantly. My problem is I get paranoid thoughts as well, but not necessarily of my partner cheating but rather of the idea that they will abandon me because of something I did (or even did not) do. For the reason I've tried to stray away from getting attached in romantic relationships & it's starting to come off to people as if I'm trying to "play" them so to speak & that's not me at all!

Anyways, to answer your question, yes I do get paranoid thoughts, to get myself out of it it sounds pretty simplistic when I say it this way but I just realize that I'm being paranoid & think about how it'll come off to the person I'm involved with & try to suppress it in a sense..which doesn't sound good but I feel that it's a good tactic as opposed to getting angry with your partner. If you suppress it for a while, it gives you time to think about it & calm down, realize "Hey, I'm being irrational, I need to calm down & breathe"

I suggest perhaps practicing yoga & or meditation. These techniques have helped me get clarity of mind many of times when I need it, I hope you'll look into it. Hope I helped!

[Kittinator]

To be honest, I think a lot of people deal with this issue but just won't admit it. So you're not alone. But I feel it happens to people that have been hurt in the past, emotionally or physically. I was once in a long term, long distance relationship for 7 years (Yeah I know lol). It had a lot of communication problems, lying, possible cheating *it was never really confirmed..* And me being me, I was the person who wore their heart on their sleeve and believed every little tiny detail this person ever said. Needless to say we didn't work out. And even at the time I didn't believe this, but we were better apart. This person didn't know what they wanted in life, and honestly I don't think they were really comfortable with who they really were at the time.

I'm currently in a very loving relationship with my boyfriend of over two years now. Do we have our problems sometimes? yes, everyone does. Do I still have my paranoid moments, lack of trust sometimes? Of course I do. We do have communication issues at times as well, but we talk to each other a lot better than my past relationship. He's a guy so I don't expect him to pour his heart and soul out to me lol. But we talk to each other and work things out. Sometimes, us women need reassurance..lol. I've learned some guys can be very laid back and not really show much love and affection as women do. (Also adding it was a woman I dated for 7 years, and now dating a man. Big difference in personalities and how they act lol and it's taken me a LONG time to get used to that)

Personally, you have to get a hold of yourself and your actions. I know that's very 'obvious' and comes off mean but it's true. You have to stop, take a breath and tell yourself you're over thinking, and over analyzing way to much. It never really hurts to talk to him about your issue. I know some people are absolute s**t heads. But there are people out there that love you, care for you and isn't doing those bad things you think about. It's not BPD, you're just very sensitive. I'm pretty much the same way.

But I can honestly say, if you don't stop. If you don't try to take care of this issue. You will push them away. And the thing you fear the most could possibly happen, them cheating on you. Not because they wanted to. But because you honestly pushed them to that point. Or he could possibly just leave you. And then you'll be sitting there with thousands of doubts, what if's and be guilty over it all wondering what could of happened if you didn't have all these stupid thoughts.

It's hard, I understand. I would advise getting help. I personally am not seeking any help with it because I'm not as bad as I used to be. Like you, the only time I really think of anything like that is if I'm absolutely insanely stressed out and everything in my life is going down the shitter. But at the end of the day, before you decide to listen to any kind of advice or support. You have to want to fix the issue. If you continue to let these thoughts happen, they will just continue to ruin your life.

[Adversative]

trigger police

Do any of you ever get paranoid thoughts? What do you do to ground yourself? What do you do to get out of it? What could I do? I currently cannot afford therapy and I do not have access to the free therapy my college offers (I go back in late January), so seeing a professional isn't much of an option.

One of the major therapeutic techniques for dealing with BPD is dialectal behavioral therapy. If you search for this on Amazon, you can probably find some therapeutic workbooks for 20-50 dollars. This might be a good place to start until you have access to therapy.

As for dealing with the paranoid thoughts, I think what you should work on is figuring out how to notice when you're getting stressed and de-escalate before you get to the flipping out point. You can break this down into two activities:

1) Becoming aware of your emotions. If you imagine your stress levels going from 1 to 5, with 1 as relaxed and 5 as "completely lost my s**t", what do they feel like in your body? What kind of thoughts and activities do you associate with each? Can you become more aware of when you get to 2 or 3 and start acting to take care of yourself then?

2) De-escalating emotions. I find that I get really stressed out by my environment, so when I start edging up towards a 5 the first things I do are take a shower, clean my room, eat something that tastes good but is also nutritionally valuable, and then see how I feel. You might find that different techniques work at different levels of stress -- I can message a friend and talk about my problems if I'm at a 2 or 3, but if I'm at a 5 my friends are not going to be able to handle me, so I need to look for other ways of coping.

The other thing that has been really, really helpful, specifically in the context of "thinking bad things about my romantic partners", was putting a rule in place that if I started thinking X thing about them I had to wait 48 hours before I took any action about it. Your time period may vary, but I generally have found that 24-48 hours is usually enough time to remove whatever other stressors are pushing me over the edge -- which, a lot of times, is things like "not enough sleep" and "forgot to eat dinner" and a lot of times if I wait that long, I either realize it's just a paranoid thought and don't need to talk about it at all, or I'm able to have the discussion about whatever's bothering me in much more compassionate, rational tones.

And when you are on an even keel, make an effort to appreciate your partner and be nice to them. It's rough dating someone with BPD, but if you acknowledge that and are a good partner when you can be, they will be able to support you in your worst times.

[The Ice Dervish]

As stupid and corny as this sounds, create an anchor. Find something to repeat to yourself and hold onto in order to keep these thoughts at bay or at least to make them less potent. Logic is your friend, if these thoughts of your partner cheating happen so much then you need to examine everything that could ever possibly lead you to believe that they are. You'll be relieved when you find nothing, and if you do find something then you just lucked out by weeding out a scumbag from your dating and possible marriage pool.

[ViciousPetal]

Being Borderline myself, I've found that the best grounding technique I have developed is to ride the emotion through like a wave. I sink into myself and force myself to wait until the unrealistic fears/misplaced emotions start to disperse.

Lemme tell ya, riding that wave hurts, but when you can snap yourself back to reality it gets better.
I usually have a conversation with my partner and explain how a certain situation made me feel in a very calm manner, and they--understanding my disorder help me calm myself down with reassuring words.


Have you tried Dialectical Behavioral Therapy?

[defloweredmind]

I also highly suggest DBT (Dialectal Behavior Therapy). It's a therapy based around coping skills where you practice good behaviors and mindfulness of your every day life. It gives lots of things you can do. First, if this is a crisis and you need to focus on something else because the emotion is too intense is good to try uses your senses. Smell something pleasant like lavender or something you like the scent of. Take time to appreciate the scent and how it makes you feel. Meditating or taking a walk/showering or cleaning your room like mentioned above is another good activity. Rating the intensity of the emotions and noting body sensations will help you identify when you are experiencing this emotion in the future.
You might want to consider doing a behavior chain analysis. That's where you identify other vulnerabilities that could be leading to the negative behavior. In this case paranoid thoughts. Did you have restless sleep, did you eat too many sweets before bed, did someone cut you off in traffic? What is happening to you before you have these paranoid thoughts, etc. The more you do this the more you can take steps to avoid being vulnerable to the paranoid thoughts, etc.
Hope something here is helpful.